


And So Was Lyra

by LucyCrewe11 (Raphaela_Crowley)



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: F/M, Romance, soft angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25394548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphaela_Crowley/pseuds/LucyCrewe11
Summary: One-shot vignette set after The Amber Spyglass.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua/Will Parry
Comments: 13
Kudos: 44





	And So Was Lyra

**Author's Note:**

> Written May 2012

It was the most utterly searing and blazing Midsummer Day Lyra could remember there ever being since she was, perhaps, no older than six or seven years old.

It was so hot, no one really _wanted_ to be out of doors in such unbearable heat; there was heatstroke, and nasty cases of dehydration, to be taken into account for any foolish enough to venture out before the air cooled off a bit; but that didn't matter at all to Lyra; she had a promise to keep. She had sworn to Will (and he'd sworn to her, in return) that every year, once a year, at midday, on Midsummer Day, they would both sit at the same bench in their different worlds and be close to one another.

Lyra had never given up coming and she never would. Likewise, she had to believe the same of Will; he would be sitting there, too, in his world, knowing she was here. The thought made her feel warm inside. He would be so close she could talk to him, tell him about her life, as she often did, and almost- _almost_ -think he really could hear her.

Sometimes, like a buzzing in her ears, she jolly nearly thought she could hear _him_ talking to _her_.

Pan said it wasn't real, she was only imagining it; but he _did_ claim, sometimes, to sense Kirjava's presence and good wishes towards them, when they sat simultaneously on their respective benches.

That's how, he told Lyra, he knew Will kept his promise.

Lyra herself didn't need Pan's special sense for that; she just _knew_. If he hadn't kept his promise, then she hadn't known him at all, and she loved him too much, remembered everything-every tiny detail-about him too well for that. If someone dared say Will Parry would ever betray her like that, if anyone ever breathed a word that suggested he could just _forget_ her, she would punch them out. Luckily, it was a secret; hers and Will's. People were aware, of course, that she came here every year at the same time, but precious few knew _why_.

Pan was curled up in her lap as she sat there, the sun beating down on her head and winking off of her blonde hair. Gingerly, she stroked his beautiful pine marten fur. It was when Will had touched him that he had changed into the shape he would keep forever. Sometimes she laughed, when she remembered her old self, so desperate for Pan never to stop changing shape, to always be a little girl with an unchanged mind. Yes, some things were lost, in growing up, having an adult's mind, but not _everything_ , and not anything that couldn't be reclaimed in a new way. For instance, she would never read the alethiometer the same way-by pure instinct-again, but that was all right, really, in the long run, for now she was learning to read it normally, studying diligently. Reading it wasn't a natural ability, an unearned gift, anymore. Now, as she learned to read it, watching herself getting better little by little, understanding the symbols and the various ways of interpreting them, when she got a right answer, it actually _meant_ something.

She reached out, as if to touch the place where Will's hand, in his world, as he sat beside her on the bench, would be.

Her fingers felt a slight grove, and she peered down to read the writing carved into the wooden seat.

_Will Was Here_ , was all it said.

Lyra swallowed hard. She wished she knew whether or not Will had carved out those words before he left for his own world, breaking the knife so that it could never be used again, separating them for ever after, and she had simply never noticed it, or if, per-chance, in his world, he'd done it and it had shown up here because the benches were so close to each other, so entangled, despite being in different worlds.

Well, she could _hope_ those words came to be there the way she liked to imagine they did.

In Will's world, it was raining, and he had no umbrella over him as he sat on the bench. He had almost been late; something he wouldn't abide. The one thing he insisted on in life was being with Lyra just once every year, like they promised each other.

He touched the seat of the bench and smiled.

There was a carving, under his own.

A tiny heart.

_Will Was Here_ , followed by a tiny, very unevenly engraved heart, and then, _And So Was Lyra_.


End file.
